Deachman: O-Train optimism — Trillium Line journey was one smooth ride

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Before leaving my home on Monday morning, I considered what supplies I should bring. Did I still have time, I wondered, to pick up a box of flares?

Ahead of me lay a 3½-hour OC Transpo ride-along on the new Trillium Line, or, as the press kit announced in that travel-brochure-y kind of way, “Get ready to embark on an enhanced O-Train journey!”

Three weeks before the line’s soft opening on Jan. 6, I and a few handfuls of my media colleagues were invited on a preview trip along the north-south route: Line 2 from Bayview to Limebank stations and back, with a side trip on Line 4, the spur line from South Keys to the airport and back.

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I’ve heard plenty over the years about other passengers’ “enhanced” journeys after signing up for what they expected to be an innocuous OC Transpo excursion, so I wanted to be sure I was prepared. Should I bring extra rations? A box of mandarins to stave off scurvy? A change of underwear, in case I had to go to the hospital? A flashlight, compass and map, in the event we were stranded and one of us had to search for help? A harmonica to lift our spirits as we whiled away a night or two at the remote Bowesville station?

As it turned out, the combination of laziness and my generally hopeful attitude kept me from any of these precautions. The only nod I made to added safety was wearing a red fleece under my open coat, to assist any rescue workers looking for me.

I figured there was every chance we wouldn’t even make it to Bayview station. The second item on our itinerary, after meeting and registering at city hall, was taking a 10:40 a.m. OC Transpo shuttle bus to Bayview. If it was anything like the R1 replacement bus service, I’d be retired by the time it pulled in to the station.

But as it turned out, the shuttle arrived and, once loaded with media and OC Transpo and city spokespeople, departed as promised. It proved a portentous omen for the day.

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“No running on the platform” was the only notable safety advice that OC public information officer Katrina Camposarcone-Stubbs offered us, like a lifeguard admonishing children on a pool deck. “I know you’re all excited.”

I’m not sure excitement exactly captured the mood. But there was certainly eagerness to see how this would all roll out. OC Transpo has been under the microscope constantly of late, and typically not for anything that helps its reputation. Some snafus, meanwhile, are bound to accompany its soft opening with paying riders on Jan. 6, and it’s a safe bet that the public won’t abide all that many before calling for heads to roll. So days like Monday are important.

And the day went well for OC. The trains are clean and wide. You can understand the announcements on the public address system. These feel like solid commuter trains, not something jury-rigged by your uncle. They’re not an untested technology. Their wheels don’t make the sorts of nerve-shattering squeals and scrapes that haunt riders of the Confederation Line’s electric trains.

When the diesel Stadler FLIRT (Fast Light Innovative Regional Train) we were on on Monday slowed, it was to allow a train headed in the opposite direction to pass; there are sections of the Trillium Line that, owing to topography and cost, only accommodate a single line. Time will show if this is a problem, but even this inconvenience felt more acceptable than the Confederation Line’s perpetual sluggishness as trains crawl through uOttawa, a permanent reminder of that line’s engineering failures.

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Similarly, it’s difficult to find a complaint about the spur line that ends at the airport, other than, perhaps, what took the city so long? About the only thing that might improve the link between train and plane would be if O-Train riders could debark directly into their Airbus A320. But as it is, this is such an improvement. When friends ask you for a lift to the airport, you’ll soon be able to simply offer them a drive to the nearest LRT station. As Ottawa Airport Authority president and CEO Mark Laroche conceded when asked if officials were concerned about a possible drop in airport parking revenues as a result of the OC link, the decision to run a train there was about offering customers another option. That, he noted, will attract even more customers.

The return trip, about 35 minutes from stem to stern, was pleasantly incident-free, allowing time to reflect on the possibility that some of the things OC Transpo has been criticized for during the process of getting the Trillium line shipshape — notably the delays — might not be signs of incompetence. Perhaps we’re not bound for glory, but maybe, just maybe, Transpo actually learned something from the many (many) failures of the Confederation Line and, knowing that the public’s trust and patience is running on fumes and resignation, actually took the time to get this right.

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That said, there is still time for me to end up lying on my back like Charlie Brown, with Lucy, a.k.a. OC Transpo boss Renée Amilcar, still holding the football.

At any rate, at the end of the journey, Amilcar stood at the north end of the Bayview platform, ready to answer questions. You could tell she was pleased with how things were going. Even before cameras could be set up and questions asked, she briefly burst into a Pointer Sisters melody: “I’m so excited!” she sang.

I noticed that she, too, was wearing a red coat. Perhaps she’s a survivor, after all. Perhaps we transit users will all be survivors.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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